-Luz❤

Another night without sleep. Another night in which the nightmares would take me hostage and do with me as they wished. I would lay in bed for God knows how long when I would wake up, the fear of being watched would always freeze me in place.

It's frightening, really, the things that your mind can force your body to do, or not do when in panic. In my particular case I'd be awake and my brain would be on overdrive yet I wouldn't be able to even speak, or scream much less move. I would just lay there until my mind would decide to free my body from its shackles and pace around my bedroom trying to ease the ache I felt.

For the past five years it had been this way, waking up in the middle of the night and dealing with sleep deprivation during the day. Twenty years old and I had no one to turn to, no one to talk to.

Feeling lonely is one thing, but actually being alone, especially when you need someone, that's heartbreaking.

I held my trembling hands together trying to force them still before I went to the restroom and turned on the shower. I only had a few minutes, my paranoia never allowing me to take much longer than that but this would have to do.

I let the warm water wash away not just the memories but also the thoughts that came with them. The thoughts that said that it was my fault, the thoughts that said I wasn't worth it.

Maybe deep down I didn't think I was worth it, maybe deep down I really did think it was best to end it but I wouldn't let those ideas to dominate me. I had one very special reason to stay strong and it slept next door.

My mother wasn't able to fight her demons sadly, and I had no one to turn to for support. It had been five years in which I was alone and I couldn't afford therapy, though I knew I needed it. My mom had needed it also but as a cop my dad was never home and when he was they avoided any meaningful conversation.

It was as if he couldn't deal with the horrors of his job and she couldn't deal with the horrors that she felt.

Eventually she left us, not even leaving a not to say goodbye. Though I wished for her to be okay somewhere, I knew that she probably wasn't. My dad was never okay after that, having to raise me on his own.

He did the best he could, until the night in which he didn't. Until the night that I needed his support, that I needed for him to trust me.

Did he miss me? Did my dad think of me at all? Or was I just a fading memory to him?

Every day for the past years I had wondered the same thing. Did he regret his actions? Did he believe me now?

Betrayal was a hard pill to swallow, especially when it came from your own father. But facing that type of deceit and loneliness when I was only fifteen had almost killed me.

The tears that I hadn't shed in a long time threatened to make their presence but I pushed it away.

Maybe that was my problem. Perhaps I needed to let all that I had stored away in the depths of my heart and memory out, but then the pain would be never ending.

Had it really been that long since I've been out?

I scoped out the bar, looking for the pain in the ass that I considered my best friend. Of course, when I found him he wasn't alone. I didn't expect him to be, it was Friday which to him was the synonym of finding a woman and getting laid.

Typically I would have been doing the same, but today it felt different. I felt an emptiness in being here and for some reason I knew that going home with some random woman wouldn't fill the need that had unexpectedly appeared.

To piss me off even further, there was nothing I hated more than not knowing something. And I just couldn't figure out what the hell this thing that I was feeling was. There's a reason why I never bothered making friends or getting close to anyone.

"What's the matter with you today?" Lucas O'Brian asked without greeting me.

"Yeah, hey man, I'm good thanks for asking." I muttered, asking the bartender for a whisky.

Luke narrowed his eyes at me before saying something to the blonde woman next to him.

"Business deal went wrong?"

I shook my head as the liquid traveled down my throat. The burn was just what I needed today.

"Then what's up?"

Shrugging, I let out a breath. I didn't feel like discussing something I didn't fully comprehend myself.

Marty had been like a second father to my sister and I so I visited him often. There was a full year I was gone and when I went back to visit, there she was.

Three months since I had been back and I had only seen a smile once and every time I was there I'd look for her, hoping that perhaps I'd see it again. And I wasn't one for the mystery crap but she was one that I'd be willing to decipher.

A single woman never occupied my mind for too long, especially not one that looked as young as Eileen. She couldn't be over twenty-three and for my age, I didn't think I could deal with the ideas of someone who was barely out of her teenage years. But something about the guarded way in which she carried herself made me want to know more about her.

And it wasn't just about sex. Sure, I found her extremely attractive and had done so since the first moment I saw her but that wasn't it. I couldn't pinpoint it and it was driving me insane.

I pushed the thought away that she was young for me when Marty's words echoed in my head of just a couple of days ago when I had asked about her yet again.

"You may be nearly twenty-seven, but you have the maturity of young horny teenage Alexander. If you're interested in her then so be it, but she's not like the other women you are accustomed to. In fact, I think she may be much more mature than you are."

Having been engaged once before and it not working out exactly because of my immaturity, I never again bothered to settle down. Sex was it. Well, sex and parties. Some considered it shallow, my sister Addie sure as hell did but I didn't feel like settling down was necessary. My parents were dead and Addie was old enough to take care of herself now.

Since my parents had died I had cared for the family company which had previously only focused on cyber security, but since I had taken charge of it we had expanded into other areas.

Those had been my only three cares in the world; business, pleasure and my little sister. But now it seemed like I had one more but I wasn't sure under what category to place her in.

"Damn, you really are in another world today." Luke said nudging me with his elbow.

"Sorry man, I can't do this today." I said, pulling out some money and setting it on the counter.

Lucas frowned but gave me nod after he realized that whatever the hell I needed wasn't in this bar.

Though I didn't know what it exactly it was that I was looking for, I knew that somehow I would find it in those brown mysterious eyes I had seen earlier at the cafe.